Son, mom seeking witnesses to hit and run

Tim Sloan said he had the “Walk” signal while crossing the intersection at Smith-Enke Road and North John Wayne Parkway Saturday when a male driver turned south onto the parkway and struck him in the side, causing soft-tissue injuries that required treatment in an emergency room.

On Monday he had a large bruise above his knee and walked with a limp.

“I had the light, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a truck making the turn, but the guy never slowed down. He just hit me,” Sloan said.

To make matters worse, Sloan said, after the man hit him, he got out of his truck and tried to beat him up. Then the man got back into his vehicle and sped off when a few other people stopped to see if he was OK, Sloan said.

Sloan and his mother, Catherine Hoffman, said the hit and run occurred around 5:30 p.m. The truck was a silver Nissan Frontier, they said, and the driver was in his 30s, had brown hair and was wearing a suit and tie.

“He needs to be responsible for this,” Hoffman said.

Sloan, 32, moved to The Villages from California in November to live with his mom while trying to find a job. But now, because of his injuries, he will be held back in his search for work, his mother said.

Sloan said he crosses that intersection often and always obeys traffic signals as a pedestrian. Plus, relocating from California, he said he’s always on the lookout for crazy drivers.

“I’m used to stupid drivers in San Francisco,” he said.